


forget to bring a jacket, wrap up in him cause you wanted to

by woofgender



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Actual Disney Prince Sam Wilson, Awkwardness, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Wear a Dang Helmet Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 13:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14497692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woofgender/pseuds/woofgender
Summary: Sam and Steve accidentally take each other's jackets at the end of their first date. It's awkward for everyone involved.





	forget to bring a jacket, wrap up in him cause you wanted to

**Author's Note:**

> A very, very silly fic that emerged from the realization that Sam and Steve both wear slightly different leather jackets in CA:TWS. Not canon-compliant with anything after that movie. 
> 
> A big thanks to [oh_no_oh_dear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_no_oh_dear/pseuds/oh_no_oh_dear) and [AwesomeSNAFU](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomeSNAFU) for ~~enabling me~~ helping me brainstorm this and making suggestions, and another big thanks to tumblr user neuromagpie for your encouragement and feedback!
> 
> Title from Hayley Kiyoko's "Curious," mainly because it was too perfect to resist.

Sam wasn’t sure if they were putting something new in the coffee at the cafe around the corner from the VA, but he was pretty sure that Captain America was flirting with him. 

He’d been running through the options in his head:

  * Maybe this was just how people interacted in the 1940s?
  * But surely someone would have _told_ him by now
  * Maybe all his friends and coworkers are too charmed to say anything.
  * Am _I_ too charmed to say anything?
  * Yes.



So he just kept sitting there, drinking his coffee, watching actual Steve Rogers blush and toy with his mug and--was he batting his eyelashes?

Anyway. Sam was only human, and now he was on a first name basis with Captain America _please, call me Steve_ , and _Steve_ had invited him out for coffee and. Well. Sam wouldn’t say he was flustered, but maybe he was a bit...out of practice with the whole dating thing. When they got up to leave, he took the jacket Steve handed to him without question. He reluctantly waved goodbye to Steve and walked back to the VA.

It was a nice day, warm and sunny, and he slung the jacket over his shoulder as he walked, whistling a little. It was only later, when he was leaving work for the day, that he put the jacket on. He frowned down at it--it was a little roomier in the shoulders than he was used to--and realized that it wasn’t his jacket at all. He’d gotten the wrong jacket. He’d taken Steve’s jacket by mistake.

Sam gave himself a brief and panicky pat-down before he realized that his wallet, keys, and phone were securely in his pants pockets. This still left him with a problem: Steve’s jacket.

It smelled nice. It smelled _really nice_.

_____

A few blocks away on Massachusetts Avenue, Steve was stuck in traffic. The car in front of him stopped, and he followed suit, putting a foot down to balance his bike. This gave him the opportunity to fuss with his jacket, which was snugger than usual around his shoulders and wouldn’t close across his chest. Steve looked down as he struggled with it, and nearly overbalanced.

It was Sam’s jacket. Something in his chest swooped treacherously.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” he said, too loudly. The driver of the car next to him looked over sharply. Steve looked back and attempted a smile that felt more like a grimace, or like he was baring his teeth. A kid--maybe eight years old--waved at him from the back seat of the car. Steve waved back weakly, and then turned back to the road in relief when the car in front of him finally moved. 

“Shit,” he said again, this time as quietly as he could. He’d already made an ass of himself at the coffee shop, blushing and stuttering and staring at Sam’s strong, graceful hands and gentle eyes and warm smile. At their very first meeting, Sam had looked at him and seen right through the body the government had given him, so fast it made Steve feel like the ground had shifted underneath him. Sam had seen him, really _seen_ him, and itmade Steve feel fifteen again, wrong-footed and clumsy and torn between terror and guilty arousal. He’d managed to take the guy out for coffee, and now he’d somehow stolen the man’s jacket. 

He didn’t get far before traffic stopped again, this time for a motorcade. Steve stopped and put a foot down, then realized he was still next to the same car from before. _Dammit_. 

The driver rolled her window down. Steve attempted another smile, hoping he didn’t look as crazed as he felt. 

“Are you Captain America?” the driver shouted.

Steve attempted to sit up a little straighter. “That’s me,” he replied.

“My daughter’s a big fan!”

“That--that’s great,” Steve said, “thanks.” He waved to the kid in back seat again. 

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a helmet?”

“Um,” Steve said, and felt his face go warm, abruptly remembering how Sam had grinned at him and called him _adrenaline junkie_ when he’d climbed on his bike without a helmet.

Blessedly, at that moment, the car in front of him finally moved. Steve gratefully kicked the bike into gear and drove towards home, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. 

_____

Sam meant to text Steve as soon as he got back to the office, he really did, but Fatimah needed help with an urgent problem with a client, and then Javier, one of his clients, had left a voicemail while he was away from his desk, and Sam had to call him back and talk him down from a panic attack, and by the time Sam had a moment free, it had completely slipped his mind. He only remembered again when he was packing up to go home for the day. The evening had turned a little chilly, and he paused before shrugging and putting the jacket on. He figured Steve wouldn’t mind. 

As he headed out the door, he texted Steve: _had a great time today :) i think i picked up ur jacket by mistake. can i take u out to dinner to make up for it?_

_Nice_ , Sam thought to himself. 

Sam took the metro home, so as long as he was underground, he could convince himself that he just didn’t have enough signal to see any reply from Steve. There still wasn’t any response by the time he reemerged. Sam bit his lip, frowning down at his phone. 

_Stop worrying_ , he told himself firmly. _You’re an adult, and so is he. He’s allowed to take his time to reply. Get it together_.

Sam did not get it together.

He wasn’t--well, he wasn’t clueless. Sam knew that Steve was into him. It could hardly have been more obvious if Steve had hung neon billboards all over the city. But as much as Sam had worked on his self-esteem over the years--and he considered himself pretty healthy in that regard--it was hard not to feel like it was all some kind of big mistake, like Steve thought he was much cooler and better than he actually was. 

And, well, there was the whole “out of practice with dating” thing. Sam was perfectly capable of flirting smoothly with beautiful people of any gender, but he rarely invited them home. It wasn’t as bad as it used to be, but screaming nightmares tended to put people off. 

Then again, there was something in Steve’s expression back at the VA, when he’d asked Sam if he was happy now. The subtext had been clear as day: _can I be happy again? Will it ever be okay?_

So. Maybe Steve would understand. 

By this point, Sam’s anxious speed-walking had carried him home from the metro station, and as he locked the door behind him with one hand, he dug out his phone with the other and checked it. Still no messages.

Maybe Steve was on a...a mission? The details were probably classified to hell and back, but it was an open secret that Steve Rogers did some kind of work for SHIELD, and that it probably wasn’t a desk job. 

_Stop acting like a damn teenager_ , Sam told himself, reaching to hang up the jacket. As he did, two objects fell out of the pocket and thunked to the floor.

Frowning, Sam bent down to pick them up. The first was a little half-empty tub of Vaseline. Sam’s eyebrows shot up involuntarily, but he reminded himself that Steve might just use it as chapstick or something. The other object was heavier than he’d expected. It was rectangular and had what looked like some switches on the sides, a bit like one of those handheld video games that Sam’s niece Jody loves, but when Sam turned it over, it had a label reading TOP SECRET -- US GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. Sam raised his eyebrows. Why the hell had Steve had something so classified in his pocket?

Sam carefully tucked it back into the jacket pocket, but when he did, he felt something else inside. After a brief, fierce battle with his conscience, he pulled it out. 

He immediately recognized it as the small journal that Steve had with him when they first met. Sam’s lips twitched up in a smile, more or less involuntarily. Steve was _adorable_. 

_Well_ , Sam thought. _In for a penny_. He opened the journal--just to glance, he told himself, or (Sam checked his phone again, to no avail) to see if Steve had maybe put an alternate phone number in there that Sam could use to reach him. It fell open to what was clearly a recent page, with a scribbled to-do list: 

  * How to date in 21st cent.
  * ~~Ask Nat?~~ Definitely don’t ask Nat
  * How to ask someone out in 21st cent. Googles?
  * Buy milk.
  * Is my deodorant working well enough?
  * Buy deodorant.
  * Good restaurants in DC for dates?



And then, on the next page, in neat, careful printing, Steve had written Sam’s name and number. He’d drawn a couple of little hearts next to Sam’s name.

There was a funny ringing in Sam’s ears, and he felt a little light-headed. He sat down hard on the floor. He carefully closed the journal, set in on the floor in front of him, and then propped his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

He was so done for. 

_____

By the time he was close to home, Steve realized that he was actually famished, and then remembered that because he’d been away on a mission, there definitely wasn’t any unspoiled food in his refrigerator. He parked his bike near his apartment, then walked to a nearby restaurant where the staff knew him well enough not to make a fuss. He always tipped well, figuring it was the least he could do when he ordered enough food for four ordinary people.

He sat outside to eat so he could people-watch, and after he’d made it through the first two plates of food, he reached into his jacket for his notebook, wanting to sketch a little. Only the notebook wasn’t there--and it wasn’t his jacket, he abruptly remembered, it was Sam’s. 

Steve hesitated, hands still in the pockets. It was probably an invasion of privacy to look at what Sam did have in his pockets. _Oh, God_ , he thought, _I’m a terrible person_. 

On the one hand, Steve thought, it probably wasn’t right for him to go through Sam’s jacket, especially because he definitely hadn’t had permission to take it. On the other...well. Steve knew he wasn’t exactly the smoothest guy in the world. He probably needed any advantage he could get if he wanted to take someone as cool and funny and gorgeous as Sam on a date. Just thinking about asking him made Steve’s hands go clammy with sweat.

Maybe he could just...take a peek?

The first thing he pulled out was a package of cinnamon-flavored chewing gum. Steve wrinkled his nose at the strong smell, trying not to feel a little disappointed. _Really, cinnamon?_ After 

that, there was a tube of some fancy organic lip balm, a battered ticket stub for a science fiction film festival, and a crumpled post-it note. Steve carefully flattened it out a little to read what was written on it. 

In neat, small letters, Sam had written GOOD THINGS at the top of the note, and then the date from a few days ago. There was a short list following: 

Pancakes for breakfast

Sunrise

Saw 3 dogs

And then, underlined for emphasis:

Met Steve Rogers!!!

Steve carefully set the note down and put his head in his hands. His face was so hot that he felt like it must be glowing. He definitely, definitely shouldn’t be doing this in public. 

Still, it wasn’t lost on him that Sam had written _Steve Rogers_ , not _Captain America_.

He picked his head up and dug around in the other pocket anyway. 

First, he pulled out a small cloth drawstring bag. He frowned and gently tugged it open, peering inside. It was full of...seeds?

He glanced around to make sure no one was watching too closely, and then cautiously sniffed the seeds. It smelled—well, like seeds. It seemed familiar somehow, and finally, he remembered where he’d seen something like it before—usually, it was something elderly folks fed to the birds in parks. 

Steve imagined Sam feeding birds, and then imagined Sam feeding birds from the palm of his hand while other birds perched on his shoulders, and then Steve had some sort of violent internal emotional crisis. Maybe not entirely internal, either, because two people from a neighboring table were definitely staring at him. He picked up his water glass and gulped it down, trying to cover up his reaction, and managed to spill a significant amount of it on his shirt. The cold shock of the water distracted him, though, and he managed to calm down a bit even as he was fruitlessly dabbing at his shirt with a napkin. 

Carefully, Steve put everything back in the jacket pockets. As he tucked the bag of birdseed away, his hand brushed against something else. He grabbed it and pulled it out, squinting at the small foil package, and then almost dropped it. The packaging had changed a lot since the last time he’d seen one, but it was pretty hard to mistake the contents. He turned it over as subtly as he could, and then almost dropped it again: on the reverse side, it was emblazoned with a logo of his shield, complete with a printed slogan reading, “CAP SAYS...DODGE THE CLAP!”

Steve shoved the condom back into the jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet, dropped some bills on the table, and stood up. He had to get home and, well. Think about all of this. 

_Just think_ , he firmly told himself, despite a smug internal voice that sounded too much like Bucky: _Oh, you’re gonna “think” about him real hard, huh, pal?_

“Oh my _god_ ,” Steve muttered. A woman at a neighboring table gave him a funny look. He grimaced apologetically and made his retreat.

As he left the restaurant, he checked his phone, which had thankfully been in his pants pocket and not his jacket, wondering if Sam had already noticed the jacket mix-up and sent him a message. The phone was out of battery again (he kept forgetting to plug it in at night, and as Natasha never tired of telling him, this is what happened when he didn’t plug it in). He shrugged and put it away, promising himself that the first thing he’d do when he got home was to plug it in and then send Sam a text. Maybe he could say something really smooth, offer to buy him a drink or dinner or something. 

When he arrived home, though, his neighbor was in the hall, and then Nick Fury was in his apartment, and then his entire life went to hell. 

_____

Steve--and really, he felt like he had a good excuse for it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel bad about it--didn’t remember the jacket until he woke up in the hospital. He’d come back to consciousness slowly, like he was moving through a dense fog, following the strains of music like a path through a maze. He could tell there was pain, but it was mercifully distant under the weight of painkillers, which meant that someone--Natasha or Maria, probably--had told the doctors how to dose him.

Then he turned his head, and there was Sam, battered and bruised but radiant. “On your left,” Steve murmured, and Sam smiled at him, and even under all the painkillers and what was, he slowly realized, probably a concussion, Steve felt something flutter in his chest. He smiled back helplessly.

Then: ”Oh, shit,” he mumbled, staring at Sam, who was wearing a very familiar leather jacket. Steve’s leather jacket. “Your jacket,” Steve said.

Sam stared at him, and then burst out laughing. “You don’t have to sound so sad about it,” he said, and picked up a cup of water with a straw in it from next to the bed, offering it to Steve.

Steve obediently took a sip of water. “But your jacket,” he said, or tried to say, because the straw was still in his mouth.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said, and so, so gently stroked his hand over Steve’s hair. Steve went absolutely still, trying to commit the feeling to memory. It took him a moment to realize that Sam was saying something else.

“Sorry,” Steve said after a moment, figuring that whatever it was Sam said, he should probably apologize anyway.

Sam laughed again, and Steve smiled automatically. “You don’t need to apologize, Steve,” Sam said. He’d stopped petting Steve’s hair. Steve tried not to feel too disappointed about that--it did make it easier to focus. “My jacket was in the car Nat said you drove down from Jersey. It’s back at my house right now.”

Steve felt immensely relieved, but there was something still bothering him. “Why…” he started, and then lost the thread again, staring into Sam’s eyes.

“Why what?” Sam prompted him.

“Oh. Why are you wearing my jacket?”

“Um,” Sam said, and held out the cup of water again. Steve obediently took a sip, but kept his eyes on Sam. He couldn’t be sure, but he was almost certain that Sam was--blushing?

“Oh,” Steve said. “ _Oh_. You _like_ me.”

Sam sat back down and put his head in his hands. “They really do have you on the good stuff, don’t they,” Steve heard him mumble.

“Sam,” Steve said, “I gotta tell you a secret.” Sam looked up, still hiding most of his face. “I like you too,” Steve whispered. “Also, the jacket looks good on you.”

Sam was _definitely_ blushing now. “Well, everything looks good on me,” he said, grinning.

“I think you look good in my clothes,” Steve said, and then, “I think that’s the smoothest thing I’ve ever said.”

“It was pretty smooth,” Sam replied, and looked like he was going to say something else, but then a nurse bustled in, and really, that was probably for the best, because Steve had just become abruptly, horribly aware that he was wearing a catheter.

Still. It was definitely the best way he’d ever woken up in the hospital. And Sam was still smiling at him. 

_And_ , that treacherous mental voice reminded him: he knew where Sam kept a condom.

 


End file.
